Deload Week Basics

Posted March 27, 2017

It’s Deload Week at SLC Strength & Conditioning!

Recovery is just as important as training and we want you to continue to meet your health goals. Every 4-6 weeks, we’ll be sending out a reminder on when our deload weeks will be so that you can plan accordingly. Embrace this recovery time and we’ll see you in class!

What does this mean for you?

If you regularly attend the gym 5-6 days per week, then shoot for 3-4 days of workouts this week.

If you come 2-4 days per week, treat this like a regular week; the workouts will have the same effectiveness for you as well.

Why deload?

When we exercise or workout, such as weight lifting, running or other forms of cardio, we are actually stressing the body out and breaking down our tissues and muscles at the cellular level. Something to keep in mind, however, is that our bodies can only handle so much stress for so long. While it is easy to get addicted to the post-workout euphoria and seeing weekly strength gains or weight loss results, it is also important to allow our bodies to adequately and actively recover.

If we overload the body too much for too long without adequate recovery, we start to experience excessive physical or mental fatigue, get sick, experience burn out and defeat, start to plateau, or we get injuries. It is important to recognize this and take a deload week. This is basically an opportunity to build the body back up from the 4-6 weeks of hard work and stress from working out.

Effects of deloading:

At SLC Strength & Conditioning, our main goal is to stress the body out to the verge of these symptoms, then deload your workouts and let your body recover, get stronger, and then we build off of this process.

When we give the body adequate recovery, our tissues and muscles create adaptations to these stressors and get stronger. This will help prevent physical and mental fatigue, plateauing, burnout, and most importantly, injuries. Sounds great right? Remember, recovery is just as important as training!

How we deload:

We make minor adjustments to the training by decreasing the amount of weight on vulnerable joints, and limiting the load on the spine. When done correctly, we can actually expedite the recovery process and decrease the stress on the on the neurological system.

If any of you have any questions or concerns regarding any of the content in this email, please don’t hesitate to reach out—I’m happy to help!

If this has peaked any of your interests in this process and you would like to know more about the physiological factors of deloading or recovery outside of my own scope of knowledge, please refer to this great article from Elitelifts, and any of the studies listed below.